Although I think that my film appears more realistic without a non-diegetic soundtrack, I feel as though it will help to create a more cinematic effect on my narrative and enhance the tones I want to establish at different points in the film. Unfortunately the criteria mandates that any material that isn't your own cannot be used, meaning that if I wanted to use a non-diegetic score, I would have to compose one myself. I am going to attempt to use Garage Band to create and then export different musical backing tracks, but if they sound too basic and unprofessional, I will discard them.
Having never used this program before, I started by attempting to familiarise myself with the instruments and keys that correspond with my laptop keyboard. I experimented with a variety of sounds and recordings as a way of learning what sounded suitable and what sounded too incongruous with my film's tone. The soundtrack is integral to a film and can be equally effective when there is not one at all, but I think it will help to add another layer of intensity and redemption with a musical score to signify this change.
I know that there are channels on YouTube dedicated to providing tutorials on how to compose famous film soundtracks on the piano, and so I thought that rather than necessarily try to compose a score from scratch, I could replicate a theme using my own instruments and as a result not commit copyright fraud. The screenshot above is my attempts to use the grand piano to copy the piano tutorial for 'Alan Walker - Faded' because I thought that instrumentally this had an uplifting tone that may correspond nicely with the conclusion of my short film. Although I think that my soundtrack was a good reflection of the tutorial, I think that the music sounded both too optimistic and too depressing at the same time, and I also feel that the piano gave the track a connotation of innocence which didn't really suit.
The screenshot above demonstrates the process of exporting a track from Garage Band in order to open it in iMovie. Clicking 'Share' and then selecting 'Song to iTunes' from the drop down menu allows it to be exported into iMovie. When this is done, opening up the iTunes bar in the audio section of iMovie will give you access to all of your iTunes purchases, with your songs included.
Music tells a story in itself. The soundtracks for films have to accompany the tonal and emotional experiences occurring on screen, and so musically they reflect the narrative and how it unfolds. For this reason, when starting to compose music for my short film, the best place to start was at the beginning. Since the start of my film is supported with a voiceover, any additional audio would need to be subtle and unobtrusive. I also didn't want to make the opening overwhelming, and so what I thought would be an effective idea was to design a soundtrack that represented a heartbeat. This way it functions as both a diegetic and non-diegetic sound, subverting conventional music. To achieve this effect, I chose an instrument in Garageband that resembled something like the thumping of a heartbeat, and the closest that to this was a drum. Then I used a simple rhythm of 1 beat followed by 2 beats to reflect the double contractions, repeating this on the recording to maintain an equal and steady pace. I decided to start this just after the voiceover begins, making it seem as though the sound is in fact tied to the character.
The blue colour of the microphone tool in the top right shows that I have altered the volume. I thought it would be an effective idea to keep the pace of the heartbeat steady but slowly increase the volume to make it seem increasingly more tense.
I stopped the heartbeat just at the beginning of the main title interlude, ending with the climax of the voiceover. I ended the final heartbeat track on full volume so that it supported the threatening implications of the narrator.
For the sequence just after the title where the Father is introduced, I thought I could continue the heartbeat but make the beats increasingly closer together to show a rising heart rate and show Dylan's anticipation as his conflict becomes visible. However, I decided that I would opt for a more nuanced approach here, having just heard his heart rate it would be better if the audience had to rely purely on Dylan's reaction to gage his intentions, rather than be shown in the music. Additionally I don't think that the heartbeat was an engaging sound motif to be continued without pause, so a break from it works well in my narrative, embodying the calmness and stability of the Father.
Having used a temporary non-diegetic silence in the narrative between the Father appearing and Dylan stalking him, I decided that it was a good time to reuse the heartbeat soundtrack for the sequence where Dylan starts to get closer and closer, but also adapt it to show the changing circumstances. I used the increasingly quick beat of the drums to reflect both his increase in pace but also his increase in heart rate, establishing a much faster pace for the film itself. There is less space in-between each beat of the drum (shown in the green bar in the screenshot above) which shows that the music is quickening and consequently adding to the pace.
While I wanted the heart rate to build to a crescendo, it also needed to complement the sudden appearance of the Son, and so whilst the heart rate reaches its quickest just as Dylan is ready to pull the trigger, it suddenly disappears once the Son is heard off screen. Although realistically the heart rate would quicken even more on the sudden shock caused by the appearance of the Son, this is where the soundtrack retains its non-diegetic characteristics by being used to emphasise the tone and pace. Suddenly getting rid of the score adds to the abruptness of the Son's entry and in my opinion makes it more dramatic. It also signifies the end of the heartbeat, because I feel like to use it more would be to overuse it and there aren't really any sequences that follow where the heart rate is a good fit for the narrative.
For the more revelatory part of the narrative following Dylan's choice, I needed a soundtrack which reinforced the redemption of the character. I thought about famous soundtracks such as 'Time' from Inception, 'First Step' from Interstellar and 'Adagio' from Sunshine. However all of these were very complicated tracks to master because they involved the entire keyboard and for a beginner on the piano this would be hard to compose. So I kept thinking about a simple but evocative soundtrack, and the final scene from The Grey sprang to mind where Liam Neeson's character is facing an alpha wolf. It is a basic but emotional soundtrack, balancing regret with redemption, and what's more, there was even a tutorial for it (shown above). What I liked about it was that I could only copy the integral parts of the score and discard the rest, simplifying the process.
To change it slightly, I used an instrument called the 'slow synth brass bells' which gave the track a spiritual and choral edge to it.
The theme from The Grey is something that I wanted to play from the shot where Dylan pulls down his hood to the end of the Big Mead sequence. The problem was that the part of the score I had recorded did not run for that long, and so I would need to copy and paste it twice in order to continue the musical track for the entirety of the sequence.
The screenshot above shows how I had to overlap the audio files of The Grey in order to make the copies more seamlessly continual. There is a slight disruption in the pace and although it isn't perfect, the overlap helps to conceal the obviousness of the restart.
Because I didn't want to keep reusing the same 40 second recording of the clip I decided to record some of my original music to use for the part of the narrative after Dylan and the Father see each other. In order to keep it congruous with the sounds I already used, I chose to use the 'slow synth brass bells' again because it would all feel like a combined and complementary theme. There was no real structure to my recording, I just tried out a few different combinations of keys and eventually found one that I thought was tonally appropriate.
I didn't want to put the recording over the clips where Dylan and the Father make eye contact. This is due to my wish to recreate the effectiveness of the ending of Sicario where Benecio del Toro and Emily Blunt have an intense stand off, remaining still and silent while anticipating what the other will do. This transpires without the addition of a soundtrack, and it contributes to the suspense of the scene. Similarly I felt that this is the pinnacle moment in the narrative and I didn't want it to be undermined by having a continuous soundtrack play over it, so the silence draws attention to the significance of this individual moment.
Choosing when to start my recording was quite difficult. If I played it too early, it would finish at an inconvenient and illogical place later on, but playing it too late would mean that it would impede into the epilogue scene. I settled on placing it just as the Father starts to get in the car, because I feel like at this point the choral eloquence of the instruments would capitalise on the forgiveness/redemption currently being experienced by the characters. And then it would finish by fading out into the epilogue scene, coming across as quite professional.
When approaching the final scene I was torn. Part of me thought that leaving it in silence would be a good way to ground the film back into a sombre reality as it drew to a close. On the other hand this would be quite anticlimactic because I have spent the rest of the non-diegetic soundtrack emphasising the optimism that is occurring, and so it would be a complete reversal of tone to leave the narrative in a depressing silence. I thought that I could repeat my original recording, but this wouldn't be effective considering it had just finished as this scene began. So I thought that The Grey recording was a better fit, because it was more subtle in the notes and came across as more gentle. It also helps to make the epilogue scene feel as though it is a necessary scene in the film, by playing a soundtrack already familiar for being in the narrative already, it makes the final scene seem important to the conclusion, even though tonally it may seem a bit different. But hopefully by re-playing a track already used, it gives it the same redeeming tone as the rest of the narrative.
The soundtrack and film perfectly desist together, coming to a slow and uplifting conclusion. All in all, I feel that for the most part my non-diegetic recordings have complemented the film effectively. My only concern is that the repeated playings of The Grey during the Big Mead sequence sound more disjointed than they do cohesive.
To change this repetitiveness, I used the speed tool in iMovie to actually slow down the recording. By doing so it extended the length of the soundtrack, meaning I didn't need to repeat it multiple times, allowing it to play at a slower and more complementary pace to the unfolding of the scene. You can see in the top corner that I only slowed it by 10% because to do so any more would make the track less fluid due to the fact that each note was being played further apart.
Although the slowed down soundtrack didn't quite extend the entire length of the scene, I wasn't bothered because by repeating the track again at its normal speed it allowed me to add variety into the soundtrack as it progressed, rather than being obviously copied and pasted. So now I have two copies of the same score, but the first is played much slower and comes across as slightly different, but still cohesive with the recurring theme that also plays at the end.
One final change I made after this was to delete some of the heartbeats in the build up to the appearance of the Son. I feel like it worked in short bursts but I had copied it too many times and started the build up too early, causing it to have the effect of being prolonged rather than intensified. To solve this I deleted the first two because it allows the silence to become more eerie before the heartbeat starts and adds suspense in a brief but exciting sequence.
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